


Not All Who Wander-Saorise [Re-Written!]

by EldritchVulpine



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump, teh gey, we need an 'the crew's all here' tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchVulpine/pseuds/EldritchVulpine
Summary: A short collection of tales, generally one-shots, regarding the Courier who has always been closest to my heart.The adventures of a silver-lounged, selfish little  con artist and his big, grumpy bear of a partner. And sometimes their nerdy blonde, too.  Herein they are learning how to trust, love, and live in a world that makes it real damn hard to do any of that.
Relationships: Craig Boone/Arcade Gannon, Craig Boone/Male Courier, Male Courier/Arcade Gannon
Kudos: 7





	1. Fairy Tales

**Author's Note:**

> Recently I re-played NV and thought, holy shit. One of my first ever games, my first ever Bethseda game, and here I am, so many years later, replaying it on my Series X- when I first played it on my 360. 
> 
> So I remade Saorise, and decided I should also give this little story collection a redo as well, and maybe add some new ones!

"Once upon a time there was a knight."

"What?" Boone stopped, stared, eyebrows arched. He knew Saoirse was a bit...off. Okay, to be fair, everyone now a days was, but the tiny, red-haired imp of a man was flat out fucking crazy. Could convince you the sky was yellow and your pants were your shirt. (And then steal both without you ever seeing a thing.) He was used to the Courier singing to himself, humming, talking, starting one-sided conversations. He seemed to hate silence.

But even for Saoirse, this was...weird.

"I said, once upon a time there was a knight. And this knight- he fell in love with a beautiful princess. And- she loved him. The problem was, he was a knight, y'know? Way below her station. And there were princes and suitors just...lining up for this lady's hand."

"...If you are doing what I think you're doing, you'd be really smart to shut up."

"I am telling a story my mom used to tell me. I just remembered it, thought you'd like to hear. Hush and let me talk."

"Do I get a choice?"

"No. So anyway, there's all these high class, high ranked suitors lining up, and the princess doesn't want any of them. She wants her knight. So they ran away together one day. Well, one night, I guess- no pun intended. "

Boone reclined back on the sofa, stretching an arm over the back of it. The suite was gorgeous, he couldn't deny that; nicer then anything he'd stayed in. Didn't mean he had to like anything about this situation. He felt like a pawn, and he knew Saorise did, too. The man was damn good at hiding it, but he was nervous. He'd told him about Mr. House, about their conversations, and it all sounded way too much like House wanted them. Or, better- wanted Saorise.

"Why are you telling me a bed-time story?"

"Shut up, Boone, Jesus. I never thought I'd have to say that to you." Saorise pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, offered him one. He shook his head, wrinkling his nose despite himself. Smoking was never anything he'd enjoyed. Enough ways to die these days without poisoning yourself. 

"So these two take off. Now, my mom, she loved to tell stories, but she wasn't stupid. She didn't tell me fairy tales. So they're out in the wastes, and those are pretty hard for people like you and I to survive in, let alone the knight and his princess."

And how sad was it that Boone only just then realized how figurative 'knight' and 'princess' were meant to be? There was no ‘story by his mom’. Saorise was making this up as he went. He'd always been a thick-headed sonofabitch, though, and he arched an eyebrow, waiting for his smaller companion to go on even though he damn well knew where this was going.

"So they're out there, fighting day in and day out to just- get by. But it's alright, because they love each other, power of love, etc, etc, all that saccharine crap. But one day, the princess gets herself kidnapped by the knight's enemies."

"Saorise, that's enough." He felt himself bristling, felt his temper fraying at the edges. He didn't want to be patronized, he didn't want to talk about this, and Saorise had no fucking right.

"Lemme finish my Goddamn story, Boone." Saorise's laconic tone turned into something sharp, a snap-crack of a whip behind words that had moments ago been amused and lazy. He met Boone's eyes with that straight-on intensity that had attracted Boone to him in the first place, when he'd shown up in that stupid-ass dinosaur's mouth. People had a difficult time meeting Boone's stare, even through his glasses; Saorise, though, never once flinched away. Not afraid of him, not for one damn second, though Boone could have had him dead before he even knew what was happening. Boone was a wolf; or, if you didn't want to go all pre-war, a nightstalker. One with it’s foot in a trap. Cornered and dangerous-and Saorise as much as swatted him on the nose and told him to stop growling.

Fearless.

(He didn't know it then, but soon he would see just how fearless, watch Saorise stare down super-mutants and nightkin and maniacs, watch him tell Caesar to fuck off and laugh as squad after squad of assassins came for his blood. He didn't know it, because he'd only known Saorise for a few weeks, but he would come to find that the- his- tiny Courier was, without doubt, afraid of no one.)

"So anyway, she up and vanishes. And the knight, he goes on this rampage to find her. Looks for weeks, right? He's a decent tracker, so it's not hard for him to pick up the trail, just gotta keep following it. And when he finally finds them-"

"Saorise. Enough."

"-when he finally finds them, the princess isn't anymore. She's barely even human anymore. She's been raped and beaten and-"

"Fuck you-" He pushed up off the chair, made to leave the room, but then there was a small, slender hand on his wrist. He could have broken that arm, without trying, could have hurled Saorise up and across the room. Could have punched the little asshole right in his jaw, broken it, left him unable to run his (pretty) mouth for a nice long time.

He didn't.

He stopped.

"-And dying." Saorise, holding his stare, holding his gaze, like a snake, like a spell. "Sit down, Boone. It's just a story."

"I don't want to hear anymore of it."

"I think you should. Sit down, Boone."

"Get your hand off me or I'll break your wrist." It was a warning and a promise; the only one Saorise would get.

"I'm ambidextrous. Sit down, Craig. Please."

A long moment of silence came over the room. It was made even more eerie, even more tense by the gloom and fragile stillness around them; even Rex wasn't barking. He could see the big cyber dog, in the doorway though. He was on his feet and bristling, ears back, teeth flashing white in the shadowy corners of the suite. Already Rex was damn protective of the kid. He wondered if that was because the King had told him to be, or if the dog just liked Saorise. He knew without needing to check that if he made a move against the Courier, Rex would be on him like a wild thing.

"Craig."

Snap. The silence broke like a rubber-band pulled too far, and he jerked his gaze back around to where Saorise still sat, still holding his arm. No one moved for a long time. Then, softly-

"See, how it ends. The story, I mean- how it ends is that the knight is too late. He kills the slavers and he goes to her, but she's already mostly dead. She dies in his arms, too weak and too hurt. And the knight, he goes a little crazy. It's not a happy story, Boone." Holding his gaze, holding it, firm and unflinching, his hand locked around Boone's arm still. Like time had stopped around them. Not his story, not word for word, not an exact. It took a hard swerve at the end, and now he found himself wanting to hear. Holding his breath like it might break the spell, he stood, unnaturally still. 

"He goes a little nuts, and he starts hunting the people down who took her. Them, their wives, their kids, friends, family- he wipes them all out. And then he finds the people who sold her, and he kills them, too. And their families. And their friends. And then everyone is dead." And the hand let go. Slipped from his flesh like water.

"And there's no one left to blame or hate but himself. So the knight takes his gun and eats it."

"Your mom had shitty taste in bedtime stories."

That got a startled bark of a laugh. "Yeah, well, she also spent most of her life so high on chems she didn't know who I was half the time. But this- this had a point. Like all the good stories, it has a moral."

"Okay, Aesop. Hit me." And he flopped back down in the chair.

Saorise's expression flickered like an old holotape- surprise, amusement, thoughtfulness. He was positive Saorise was surprised he knew who Aesop was. People thought because he didn't talk a lot, because he was as cheap with his words as a miser, that he must be dumb. He was blunt and straight-forward, too, and people thought that meant he took shit at face value, never looked deeper.

It was one of his biggest assets. He got underestimated, constantly. People tended to speak more freely around him because they assumed he was too damn stupid to be a concern. Sometimes it pissed him off; usually it just amused him. He'd always gotten irritated when Clara had done it, because sometimes even she would talk down to him and _I'm not stupid, I hear you, Clara,I get it._ It almost never happened, and he barked at her about it even less.

And here was Saorise, looking at him in surprise because he knew the name of a long, long dead author and had willingly sat back down. Though, okay, maybe it was fair of him to be a little surprised on that last part. Boone was surprised about that last part.

"Moral is," Saorise finally went on, so softly, "that he who hunts monsters should be wary not to become one himself. The knight in the story let himself be eaten up by the darkness. He fed it. So torn up by what happened to his princess that he lost his humanity, and then he lost himself. The princess never would have wanted to see him become that. Would have broken her heart, I think." A small shrug, and this time Saorise stood up. Stretched, yawned, stubbed the cigarette out.

"Which isn't to say he was wrong for killing the people who killed his princess. God knows anyone would do that. Except there is justice, and there is vengeance. Kill Caesar. Kill the Legion. Kill every Goddamn Legionary you see and I will happily help you. But what happened to your princess- don't let it kill you. Knight in the story was alone. You aren't." A hand dropped down onto his shoulder, brief, squeezed it.

"C'mon, Rexxy, bed time!" He chirped, brightly and sing-song, as if he'd never said any of that. The big dog jumped up, barking loudly, the sound ringing off the walls and making Boone cringe. "And don't you dare try to hog it, either, you sleep on the foot of the bed-"

And just like that, they ran out of the room, door clicking softly behind them. He could hear them fucking around in the master bedroom, wrestling from the sound of it. He put his face in his hands, took a slow breath. Tried to make some sense of what he was feeling at that moment. Anger at Saoirse, for prying. Hurt, sorrow, exhaustion...

...and something that felt almost like relief. A little voice in the back of his head whispering how he didn't have to shoulder everything himself anymore, could unburden, could- trust-

No.

No. He couldn't. And even if he could, he didn't deserve to. This was his punishment.

This was his retribution.

Saorise was wrong. He was alone, always would be. Always had to be.

Still. He smirked to himself as there was a yelp and a thud from the bedroom, followed by rowdy barking. Still, it was nice to imagine, for the night, that his story could end differently.


	2. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Literally and metaphorically.

Saorise was a wanderer. An explorer. 

Boone had come to accept that; they'd be headed from point A to point B and wouldn't get twenty feet before _ooh, what's that?_ And off he'd go. Staying on roads was something he was terrible at; they'd clamber over hills and mountains instead, slip through shallow rivers (Saorise hated deep water) and dash through the very rare spot of trees they may find.

Still, it was hard not to be on edge when he was watching Saorise dance along a cliff edge, some ten feet away, dangerously near the crumbling side. He knew better then to try and call him back; he'd just laugh and call him a worry wart. So instead, he watched, protective and wary, and stayed within 'emergency hand grabbing' range.

Now, he was leaping down off a small rise, watching Saorise just a few feet ahead, climbing the next. They were, perhaps, twenty feet up; Saorise had insisted on taking the 'scenic route', and he had to admit, it was pretty. Peaceful. It was dusk, and quiet; the only sounds were those of wild animals and their own ambient noises; Rex, ahead of them, barking happily, the sound echoing around them.

And then his barking turned to snarling growls.

Saorise's head shot up, and he and Boone moved in tandem- something that had begun to happen with alarming frequency. Over the next rise, and there they were- a small patrol of Legion assassins. It had to be an accidental run-in; even they couldn't have known Saorise was here, not unless they were stalking them a lot more closely then Boone realized. And that was an off-putting thought if there ever was one.

He pulled the rifle off his back, already watching as Rex charged forward and Saorise leapt into the fray, laughing. Fucking crazy kid. Fucking _crazy_ kid. Sometimes he was fairly sure literally, legitimately. 

He generally kept to small arms- pistols, revolvers- and let Boone work with the larger caliber guns; leaving Rex to the up close and personal combat. That meant that he kept a distance from the fight, but was always closer than Boone. 

So when the big dog lunged at another Legionary, taking him down backwards, and the cliff face began to crumble under the weight of the slam, it was Saorise who saw and reacted first. 

“Rex!” He cried, and grabbed for the dog. 

A moment, where the world hung, still, and then the three of them tumbled out of sight without so much as another sound, the ground giving way under them like a card tower with the bottom yanked out. 

The world stayed so still. Frozen. Frozen like the ice that seeped into his soul from his heart, and then both of them- the world and Boone- exploded in rage and fire.   
_Idiot._

Little fucking idiot who _never listened_ and did stupid shit just because he _could_ and he should have known better then to get this close, he should have known better then to let Saorise pry past his defenses and he knew better, _he knew better, he knew better._

He was dangerous. He was cursed. He had his coming, he had so much coming, and it wasn’t done with him, it wasn’t done- God, _why couldn’t he just be done_? 

And then it was over. The fight, not him. The red-rage faded, and it was just Boone, standing among the dead. It was just the sound of his own breath, gasping, sobbing and ragged. Was he crying? He couldn’t tell. 

Dropping the gun he clutched like a lifeline, he finally forced himself to move. He staggered past the bodies, rocks skidding under his feet, half running and half falling down the closest thing to an incline he could find.

He didn't call out; didn't know he already had. He hadn't heard his own voice, ragged and broken, Saorise's name scraping from his throat as the little rogue had tumbled down, down, so far down.   
But he didn't call again. Just ran, praying, praying.

He didn't deserve it. God, he didn't. But if there was someone listening, anyone, who had even something like a sense of mercy, then Saorise had to be alive. Hurt, maybe, but alive. Not for Boone, but because Saorise was so much better than that, deserved so much more than that. 

He didn't deserve to go out like that. Not- without a fight, not some freakish fluke of an accident-

 _Please. Please, please. I'm sorry. I'll leave, I'll go somewhere else, anywhere else, I'll leave him alone, just please-_

The last time he'd begged, he'd had to shoot his wife in the head. He did not have high hopes now. His stomach churned; he couldn't breathe.

Solid ground at last, and he broke into a sprint, racing around the side of the rock face to where Saorise would have tumbled to find-

-nothing.

Nothing there at all. No broken body, dead or alive; no blood. No sign of a fall, no steps leading away, nothing. No Rex. No Legionnaire body. 

Now the call broke free from his chest, like it had ripped itself free. “Saorise!” A deep bellow; he didn't expect a reply.

He got one anyway.

It wasn’t Saorise. It was a soft, chuffing bark; Rex. If Rex was alive, than maybe- 

“Where are you?” He queried, head tilted as there was a whine and another soft, low bark. Tried to pin-point the sound. He followed the whining back _up_ , a little; he hadn’t fallen as far as Boone had been afraid they had, it seemed, because he spent a good five minutes grunting and scrambling his way up the nearly-sheer cliff. But there he was; on a small ledge, the dog clearly injured but alive; he wagged weakly as Boone appeared, whining again. 

“Where’s Saorise, boy?” He murmured, running his rough hands as gently as he could along Rex’s body, finding the broken ribs, the sore leg that might also have been broken. 

“...here!” It was faint, distant, but it was a voice. It was _his_ voice! 

“Boone, up here!” 

He tipped his head up, and there he was. On a small ledge, almost directly above Boone and Rex, slowly working his way down. Bloody, panting, torn to hell and embarrassed, but alive and whole.

“That was embarrassing.”

Something unfurled in his chest at the words. White hot anger. Relief. He was fine. He was fine, rapidly coming down to Boone's level, he was alive and well and perfectly damn fine. He gathered Rex in his arms, started back down himself, carefully. Getting down was hard with the dog slung over one shoulder, but he made it to the bottom just moments before Saorise. 

With a final little jump, he was next to Boone, grinning, and then-

“Tada!”

And that was the final straw. Boone's hand snapped out, grabbing the front of Saorise's shirt; he'd lifted the little wiseass in the air and slammed him against the cliff face before the rogue could do a thing about it. Saorise yelped, grabbing his wrist.

“Ow! Ribs! I'm not fine, Boone, I'm just not dead!”

“This is why you stay on the road.”

“I can't breathe-”

He dropped Saorise, unceremoniously, and the redhead curled at his feet, groaning.

“Hypocrite.” He coughed out. “Besides, it was just an accident. It could have happened anywhere.”

“Why didn't you call out to me?”

“Because I was trying to figure out if I could move without puncturing a lung.”

He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath and tried to steady himself and his temper. “Did you take a stimpack.”

“Yes.” Sulking at him, Saorise picked himself up. “I'm okay. I'm sorry I scared you, but-”

“Don't.” He hissed. Don't be 'sorry you scared me', idiot. “Be sorry you did something stupid and nearly died.”

“...Yeah, I'm sorry I nearly died. Trust me, I don't want that, either.”

“Don't act like it.” He grunted, and Saorise paused, lifted a brow.

“I- what now? Boone, seriously, you're mothering me?”

Deep breath. In and out.

“I'm telling you to be careful. That's all.”

Saorise paused, tipping his head back to get a better look at Boone. “I'm sorry.” He said again, after a moment, more honestly, very softly. And then he turned, walking away, quickly.  
He sighed, running a hand over the top of his head, and now anger combined with guilt, and guilt was a hell of a lot harder to deal with.

Dammit, he had the right to be pissed.

At himself. At Saorise.

At the fucking, fucking Legion, and damned Caesar.

Mostly at himself.

The trek home was silent and sullen.

Once back, after getting patched up by Arcade (and yelled at), Saorise closed himself in the big bedroom that he'd shamelessly appropriated for himself, leaving Boone outside in the hall alone. Even Rex went in with him, and he groaned, passing his hand in front of his face. Dammit. Dammit.  
Nothing to do about it now but wait for Saorise to quit sulking.

He moved into the guest bedroom he hadn't used in months, slipping his shoes off, clothes, and collapsed, exhausted, into the bed.

(He woke up with Saoirse beside him and Rex at the foot of the too-small bed. It was uncomfortably warm and close in the smaller bed, but he smiled, and wrapped an arm around his lover's small waist, drawing him close sleepily. Saorise spoke so much and said so little, but said so much without a word.)


	3. Dangerous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some creatures lure in their prey with illusions of safety.

He seemed so harmless. 

Small, unassuming, with a quick-silver, warm, dimpled smile and bright, laughing blue eyes; messy bright red hair and so much more willing to use words then resort to violence. He could talk the silver off a spoon or the clouds from the sky; convince you your pants were your shirt- but no, his shirt, and he’d like it back, thanks. 

He wasn’t like Boone, who everyone knew was dangerous; who radiated it, exuded it, and wore it like a coat of thorns to keep people at bay. He wasn’t like Arcade, who was dangerous when he had to be but hated it, didn’t want to have to be and did everything in his power to avoid it. 

But it was when you looked in his eyes- really looked- that you saw it, running through him like his life blood. Subtle. Deep. Hidden behind a laughing glow and a good natured spark. 

Danger. 

It wasn’t something that had been made, or forced into him; it was just a part of who he was, inherently. It was in his crooked, cocky grin, in the way he carried himself, in the way he didn’t need violence, because those silvery-coated words could talk you into leaping off a cliff. Into a crumbled, broken mess in the corner. 

He seemed so harmless, so sweet and laconic and passive, but there was a keen, shrewd mind always looking for the best angle, the best ace, the way to come up on top. And no matter how much he smiled and crooned and laughed, so warm and easy, you could see it stirring, waiting, lurking. 

It was...something, to realize that. That some people were just- inherently dangerous. Born dark, born...with something in them that not only kept them alive in the Mojave....but let them thrive. 

That some people did not become dangerous, like Boone, or were dangerous when forced to be, like Arcade, but simply had it in them since birth. 

It struck him, sometimes, like a bolt out of the blue; and honestly, it spooked him a little. He’d met people like Saoirse before. Inherently dangerous people. They always ended bad. He hoped to hell Saoirse wouldn’t end the same way. 

He watched the kid win yet another round of cards, laughing and saying something he couldn’t hear to the pretty young thing hanging off his arm. She giggled and leaned in a little harder, and he threw a wink Boone’s way. He wasn’t jealous; he didn’t deserve Saoirse in the first place, had no right to put a claim on him, but even if he had he knew better then to try. Saoirse didn’t work that way. 

He wasn’t jealous, but he was so painfully aware of the current running through the little redhead, and stunned by how she didn’t seem to notice. Didn’t seem to feel it. How did she not feel it? 

He seemed so _harmless._

_“Semper ardens.”_

He cringed to himself, instinctively. He was trying very, very hard not to hate it when Arcade spoke to him. He was trying very, very hard to remind himself that just because he spoke the same language as the Legion, he was not, and in fact hated them. He was also trying very, very hard to remind himself that Arcade did not, in fact, mean to make him feel stupid. 

“‘Always burning’.” The slender man added, adjusting his glasses and taking a seat beside Boone, feet on the table, a small smirk on his lips. 

“What?” 

“Saoirse. Always burning. Something under his skin.” He shrugged with his trademark small, unsure smile. “You see it, too. I know you do. Scares me, honestly.” 

“You should be.” Boone adjusted his seat. He caught Arcade’s surprised look, out of the corner of his eye, and shrugged a shoulder. “Kid’s dangerous. Born that way, not made.”

“Saoirse wouldn’t hurt us.” 

“Didn’t say he would.” Boone shifted his gaze to Arcade at last, dragging it away from their small third. “Just that you should be afraid of him. Or parts of him. “ 

“We’re all dangerous.” 

“Not in the same way. Said it yourself.” He shrugged again. “It’s a part of him. Makes him. Defines him. Live hard and violent, die hard and violent. It’s just what he is.” 

Arcade frowned. He didn’t like it, either, but also- he knew. He wasn’t stupid, and he saw. 

“...I want- better for him. Then that.” 

“You can’t change it, Arcade.” Boone’s tone was flat, cool, but there was an ache in his chest that agreed. “Nothing can. Can just see it, accept it, and-” He paused, struggled for a moment before letting the words slip free. “-and care about him anyway. Or you can leave.” He did not look at Arcade. He did not think too hard on what he’d admitted. 

Whatever Arcade was going to say or do next was interrupted; Saoirse materialized out of the crowd, the pretty girl still on his arm, leaning in to tell them not to wait up; distracted, Arcade forgot the entire conversation, the entire moment. 

Saoirse turned, gave Boone a warm smile, a little, playful wave, and seemed so- 

harmless. 

Which was exactly what he wanted.


End file.
